Zhongda Hospital & Morning Traffic

Zhongda Hospital



Zhongda Hospital


Dr. Dong's treatment room


Dr. Dong, Matt, Sue and Tamara

Dr. Dong & Dr. Gu (aka George) our translator


The next photos are of morning traffic on the way to our shift at Zhongda hospital - over half of the population rides bicycles, although there are still a fair number of cars on the roads. Being in traffic is like doing communal Tai Chi - there are signals, but basically everyone goes with the flow.

Cute dog - Nanjing, China

I'm not sure if this will work - this is a trial to see if I can upload videos
this one is a few seconds long, of one of the many cute stella-like dogs

Steamed Vegetable Buns

My accomplishment for the day is having learned the chinese phrase for Steamed Vegetable Buns ("cai bao zi"). Since I know either the words or appropriate hand gestures for the numbers, I was feeling quite self-sufficient. The glitch, of course came when they thought that I was ordering 5 chinese dollars worth of buns (about 15 buns), instead of just 5 buns, so I ended up with food for an army and no way to back out of the deal. Oh well, at least I have lunch for tomorrow and some more to share!

Most everything is very inexpensive here. Those 5 chinese dollars worth of buns cost about 80 US cents. A full dinner at a very nice restaurant is generally about 2 or 3 US dollars.

Today (Saturday) we took part in a festival for foreign students of all subjects studying in Nanjing. There were some of us from Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as from other universities in the city. Students come here to study from all over the world. About a third of the crowd were military officers from many African, South East Asian, and some Middle Eastern countries.

Last night Tamara (a classmate from OCOM) and I walked around town for a while. We found a park with a section of the old wall that was built around the city 1,000 years ago. We were attracted to the park, since it sounded like there was a concert going on, but what we found were 3 older men sitting in the gate (like a tunnel through the wall 25 feet long) with a karaoke machine and massive speakers. It was quite the scene!

As a follow-up to the 2-hour long foot massage that I mentioned previously, Wednesday we decided to check out the spa, where for about $15 you can soak in a hot tub and sauna for as long as you like, and then you get a 2-hour long divine full body massage. I'm hoping to return back to the states much more relaxed than I've been the past 3 years!

Typhoon!

Big news today about the storm hitting the coast. I'm glad we left Shanghai a few days ago! We're close enough to the center of it to have lots of rain, wind and adventure, but not nearly the drama that Shanghai has seen.

My group ended up missing our clinic shift this morning due to the rain. We got stuck in traffic for an hour in a taxi just to go about 10 blocks. To make up for the inconvenience, 3 of us decided to the shop next door to our hotel where we each received a 2-hour long foot massage, which ended up costing the equivalent of $7.71. My favorite part was getting a poultice of fresh ginger on our knees, which were then wrapped in warm towels, and then wrapped in heavy plastic. What a way to warm up from the cold!

We've been having endless excellent Chinese food, and have discovered some delicacies like coconut juice and fresh watermelon juice, and have found many new and familiar tastes. We've been to many types of restaurants (we don't have cooking facilities in our accomodations) including a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, a small home-style place, and to restaurants where each group gets it's own private room. My favourite dish so far is the "Tastes like fish eggplant" which doesn't actually taste like fish! I'm also getting hooked on the traditional breakfast food, which is watery rice ("congee") into which you put a variety of pickled vegetables. Yum!

Hello from glorious, humid, noisy, stinky, smokey, dusty Nanjing!

We made it safely to Shanghai by plane on Saturday night & then spent the night at a hotel in Shanghai. We woke up to dense humidity, great views, noisy traffic, people doing tai chi & chi gong in the park below our window & many other amazing sites.




Sunday morning we took a minivan to Nanjing, where we'll be living and studying for the next 5 weeks.

China is absolutely fabulous - first of all because as we exited from customs and entered the lobby to wait for our bus, we were greeted by none other than the great Jackie Chan! okay, so it was only a poster advertising the olympics, but I take it as an omen for a great stay here.

Random exciting tidbits:
- Stella [the dawg] statues are everywhere!


- more than half the population rides bikes, or amazingly silent scooters
- we've gotten ourselves bicycles & are working on how to maneuver in traffic









- there are huge bike lanes on all the major roads (click on photos for a better view)









- there are lots of small dogs everywhere (haven't seen any big ones yet). 5pm onwards seems to be walkie time. there's also lots of dogs who ride in the front basket on bicycles!

We've just completed our first day at the hospital - we're working in groups of 3, each group with a doctor and a translator. I'm at the Zhongda Hospital, which is a part of Nanjing University, with Dr. Dong and our translator "George" aka Dr. Gu. The hospital reminds me alot of the Nicosia General Hospital (the old one), but so much more pleasant and quiet!

Zhongda hospital offers both western and chinese medicine, with a different section for each. I'm in the acupuncture department, which sees primarily pain and musculoskeletal problems, in addition to other issues.

Dr. Dong is great. She's compassionate, skilled, and obviously cares alot about the people who come through her clinic. She's one of 5 doctors in the department.

One thing I find pretty amazing is that although Nanjing is a city of 6 million (a small city for China!), everyone is laid back and things seem to run very smoothly. Traffic is insane - both due to the number of vehicles (motorized and not) and also because of how people drive. As Erik, our trip leader says, it all works by momentum. And so far, although I've seen a gazillion near-misses and potential accidents, I haven't actually seen a real accident, or even yelling match, yet. sure, there's plenty of horn-honking going on, but people don't seem to bat an eyelid, they just gently adjust their course and keep going.

There's tons more to say, but I have to start getting ready for day 2.

Hoping you all are well!
--Sue